Monthly Archives: October 2014

A follow up article from Inside Higher Ed about Adode Reader’s recent ‘data breach’. Adobe have updated Adobe Digital Editions to version 4.0.1 which now encrypts the information its ebook and PDF reader collects about users.

In the article, Carl Straumsheim argues that the recent patch to address that privacy issue has spawned a new problem for librarians and readers who ‘no longer know how they are being monitored’.

Andromeda Yeltonn foreshadowed this problem in an earlier article, noting that ‘With ebooks, … the technology we have to put in place to enforce [digital rights management] and contractual requirements requires a fair amount of surveillance of infrastructure.”

Nate Holffender believes Adobe should not be applauded for satisfying the ‘bare minimum’ requirements set by privacy laws and basic standards of conduct. It also remains unclear how Amazon is using the encrypted data to track individual library users reading habits.

Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) is a reading app used by many libraries and readers around the world to access and read ebooks.

Adobe has come under recent scrutiny for tracking users in the app and uploading their data to servers. The plain text transmission of data was first reported Oct. 7 presumably stretches back as far as the release of ADE 4.0 in early September.

The American Libraries Association President Courtney Young stated in a press release

People expect and deserve that their reading activities remain private, and libraries closely guard the confidentiality of library users’ records… The unencrypted online transmission of library reader data is not only egregious, it sidesteps state laws around the country that protect the privacy of library reading records. Further, this affects more than library users; it is a gross privacy violation for ALL users of Adobe Digital Editions 4.”

The Digital Reader has critisiced Adobe’s responses as being in adequate. Adobe claims that sending a user’s reading logs in this form meets the standards of Adobe’s privacy policy. The dispute highlights some of the difficulties in setting standards for DRM and readers privacy.

Michael Kelley has published an article on Publishers Weekly ‘How Libraries Preserve E-books’, which picks up on many ideas previously discussed by this blog. Robert Wolven, associate university librarian for bibliographic services and collection development at Columbia University is quoted:

‘preservation is the global warming issue for e-books… everyone knows that if we don’t do something now we’ll be in trouble later’.

The article discusses some of the issues faced by libraries with negotiating perpetual accessed to licensed content. The article also considers how digital rights management technology and proprietary e-book formats can make preservation difficult.

Legal deposit for e-books and electronic serials would be a step forward in facilitating ebooks. Currently the US mandates that only electronic only serial publications be deposited at the Library of Congress, with no similar requirement for ebooks. This is problematic with the increasing amount of born digital ebook only titles and with the proliferation of self published e-books entering the market.

An interesting opinion piece by Peter C. Herman, professor of English Literature at San Diego State University. The article touches on recent debate which suggests print material, is better for students in retaining information when undertaking intenese reading and deep learning.

The article also touches on some other isssues previously discussed by this blog, such as licensing restrictions on eresources which make printing, downloading and saving portions of ebooks and journals difficult.

The comments section is also worth a look, there is some interesting debate about the pros and cons of eresource subscriptions.